Modelling Crowd Dynamics in Bio-PEPA-- Extended Abstract

Citation

Massink M, Latella D, Bracciali A & Hillston J (2010) Modelling Crowd Dynamics in Bio-PEPA-- Extended Abstract. 9th Workshop on Process Algebra and Stochastically Timed Activities (PASTA 2010), 2010, London, UK.

Abstract
Emergent phenomena occur due to the pattern of non-linear and distributed local interactions between the elements of a system over time. An example of such phenomena is the spontaneous selforganisation of drinking parties in the squares of cities in Spain, also known as "El Botell´on" [16]. Surprisingly, crowd models in which the movement of each individual follows a very limited set of simple rules often re-produce quite closely the emergent behaviour of crowds that can be observed in reality. In this paper we take a stochastic process algebraic approach to agent based modelling. In this setting, a single stochastic process algebraic model can be used for several forms of analyses among which simulation, stochastic model-checking and fluid flow analysis. Here we revisit the case of self-organisation of crowds in a city. We show that a fluid flow approximation, i.e. a deterministic reading of the average behaviour of the system, can provide an alternative and efficient way to study the same emergent behaviour as that explored in [16] where simulation was used instead. Scalability features of this approach may make it particularly useful when studying models of more complex city topologies with very large populations.